Is food better than it used to be?

[Fat Guy]

Well, I think it's better on the whole. What do you think?

[LaNiña]

Are we talking food cooked at home, or food cooked "professionally?"

[Fat Guy]

I hadn't thought of the category of food cooked at home. The two categories I had in my mind were ingredients and restaurant food. But I think part of what will make the discussion interesting is that it will have to address the issue on many levels. That's why I was purposefully vague.

[LaNiña]

Oh FG, you're so tricky

[Fat Guy]

That's why they pay me the big bucks, Nina.

[jaybee]

Better than it used to be? When was "used to be?" yesterday? last month? ten years ago? 1897? Please clarify your question.

If you mean are the tomatos we eat today better than the tomatos of yesteryear--no.

Chickens?--no.

Hot dogs-no.

Corned beef--no.

Meals like Ferdinand Point prepared?-no.

Steak--yes.

...???

Your question requires a lot of work to answer FG! Are you just trying to distract the troublemakers so we don't start any controversial and "subversive" threads?

[Wilfrid]

Yeah, it's not like you throw a stick and we all run after it like a bunch of dumb dogs.

(Huh - who am I kidding? This thread will be twelve pages long tomorrow.)

[Andy Lynes]

That's why they pay me the big bucks, Nina.

Pay???? PAY!!!!!

[Andy Lynes]

My food today was better than it was yesterday, but I see a further improvement on the horizon by midweek, reaching a zenith by the weekend. Things will then tail off, with a surge upwards in a fortnights time.

[Fat Guy]

Jaybee: You think steak today is better than it used to be? Really?

Better than it used to be?  When was "used to be?"  yesterday? last month?  ten years ago?  1897?  Please clarify your question.

No!

[John Whiting]

If you are casting your net wide enough to include the world's entire population, there is conflicting evidence of mass starvation versus improved diet for the impoverished. Paradoxically, in Third World countries obesity is now a major factor in malnutrition.

One of the most important overviews comes from culinary historian Rachel Laudan. Her essay, "A World of Inauthentic Cuisine", overstates the case against terroir and related values, but it raises a number of inescapable questions which require an answer. Steven S, you will probably find yourself more in agreement with much of its ethos than I do. http://www.orst.edu/food-resource/kelsey/laudan.html

[Bux]

Well, I think it's better on the whole. What do you think?

I think you're eating better than you used to and I'm not, Sonny.

Let's go back to Jaybee's post. All of those things that are not as good as they used to be, are also not as bad they were either. So while the average chicken, egg and French bistro meal is not as good as it was when I was a kid, there have been recent improvements and those with a bit of time, energy, money and interest can do better at least in the short history of things. We've hit bottom and there's a light at the rim of the rut.

[LaNiña]

Yeah, it's not like you throw a stick and we all run after it like a bunch of dumb dogs.

woof. arf. yap.

[Wilfrid]

And how reliable is food memory? Whenever I eat really good chicken, I think - ah, that's what it used to taste like when I was a kid. But how the hell do I know? I doubt that I really do.

[Fat Guy]

Good boy.

[macrosan]

Variety and availability, of ingredients and restaurants, are surely better than they were.

I think the quality of shop-bought ingredients is generally lower. I guess hygiene is supplanting high cuisine.

[Fat Guy]

Whiting: I will read. On that point, Ed Behr has a statement in the Art of Eating issue 61 to the effect that: "Ironically, most poor people in the Western countries today eat high-tech food, and only the affluent can afford old-fashioned, less manipulated, better-tasting, low-tech food." I must confess, John, when I thought of this question, I was thinking about my narrow middle class Western friends here on eGullet and -- as I usually do but shouldn't -- I was forgetting about the less fortunate, the rest of the universe, etc. But I don't own the topic just because I thought of the question, so thanks for bringing it up.

[John Whiting]

The intriguing thing about Rachel Laudan's essay is that people of opposite political persuasions, left and right, may well claim it as evidence in their own support.

[jaybee]

My impression is that the rich eat as well today as they ever have. The poor eat as poorly as they ever have. The nearly poor eat so much starch and carbohydrates that they get fat quite young. One has only to sit in a parking lot of a suburban mall to witness this. People live on average ten or twenty years longer than they did 150 years ago, and nutrition may have something to do with that, though I suspect sanitation and

vaccination from diease are the main contributors.

Industrialization of food production has taken quality down a peg in some respects,

but competition for the disposable income of the upper middle class has forced quality up. Ice cream is one example. It used to be great, then became drek, now is coming back to great for a super premium price.

If I knew when I was 20 as much about food as I know now, and I could have afforded to indulge myself as much as I can now, I could have eaten just as well (with exception of the availability of certain foods "out of season").

My answer to your question is no.

[Fat Guy]

That "out of season" exception, which you downplay, is a big one. The "season" for produce in much of the United States is just a few months -- certainly less than half the year. The ability to get fresh fruits and vegetables year round is probably the single greatest improvement in the food supply (here I'm talking about Western industrialized nations) in history.

I also think that the rich eat much better today than ever before, because restaurants today are so much better than they ever were. I can't imagine the Michelin three-stars of old competing with today's group -- it would be a slam-dunk. And again that transportation issue comes up: The quality and freshness of seafood available to restaurants has improved dramatically in the past 20 years, even at the luxury level.

[Fat Guy]

The intriguing thing about Rachel Laudan's essay is that people of opposite political persuasions, left and right, may well claim it as evidence in their own support.

What else is new?

[jaybee]

That "out of season" exception, which you downplay, is a big one. The "season" for produce in much of the United States is just a few months -- certainly less than half the year. The ability to get fresh fruits and vegetables year round is probably the single greatest improvement in the food supply (here I'm talking about Western industrialized nations) in history.

I didn't downplay this. I noted it as an exception to the generality. This is probably the biggest qualitative difference from the days when transportation was a barrier to freshness. Though the super rich had greenhouses and orangeries to grow out of season fruits and veggies.

[macrosan]

One thing that I dislike is that much of the "fresh" food we get is actually dried or frozen. Reconstituted "fresh" fruit juice is not fresh by my definition. Fruit or vegetables which have been deep-frozen for shipment are not "fresh". I saw a post here which said that the typical "fresh" apple in the shops hade actually been in deep-freeze for over a year.

I remember once asking in a restaurant if the whitebait was fresh. "Oh yes", said the waiter, "it's fresh frozen".

[Fat Guy]

Frozen fruits and vegetables being sold as fresh? Really? In juices I imagine it is so, but in their whole form? I missed the post. Did it have a citation? I know apples can be stored at cool temperatures for a very long time but I didn't think they were ever frozen if to be sold whole.

Fresh-frozen is one of those silly marketing words that people don't think enough about. But still, freezing technology itself has improved dramatically since its inception. It is becoming closer and closer to possible to "fresh-freeze" many foods in such a way as to provide a high-quality year-round supply. Improvements in shrimp freezing, for example, are getting the product closer and closer to the can't-tell-'em-apart-in-a-blind-taste-test state.

[cabrales]

Whether food is better than what it used to be depends, among other things, on whether one's subjective preferences are better matched to food today. In particular, for restaurants, to the extent the ones a diner most appreciates did not used to exist, say, twenty years ago, one might easily conclude that food is better today. Obviously, it's useful to have been an adult twenty years ago to compare the food prevalent at that time relative to the food today.